Before mounting, I searched the other’s saddlebags and found sacks of beans, tortillas, Mex jerky, and a sack of maíz! We sorely needed that grain corn. Taking the saddle and hackamore off the Mex’s horse, I let it loose. It weren’t no better off than ours, maybe worse, and it was just another grain-eater. He’d make it on his own. I felt sorry for the one that ran off still saddled and carrying a bullet and buckshot.
After a couple of miles, we stopped to dump the guns and sort our gear. Marta got her clothes back on, excepting the still-wet long johns top. She’d been shivering something bad wearing only that brown shirt. Graining the horses and feeding them the tortillas perked them up.
That sight of Marta at the stream still hung in my head. It’d perked me up too. Pretty amazing.
It got colder and the wind picked up. The north was dark a couple of hours before sunset. The stampeding clouds said another storm was coming in. I’d wanted to ride for as long as we could in the dark. It wasn’t to be.
We rode hard, and right before dark, we came up a ridge side. There was Cerro el Colorado, its blunt top covered in gray and black clouds and lightning looking like the Devil’s Throne.
I don’t know if the sun set first or if the storm blacked it out. We rode until we couldn’t see. It was hard to lay out the bedroll and rock-anchor the tarp and gum blankets. The horses were pretty miserable tied to their picket line. They stood there, their rumps to the blasting wind and heads hung, condemned to a long cold, wet night. We weren’t much better off.
It began to sleet.
Chapter Fifty-Five
The last thing I wanted to do was crawl out of that bedroll away from Marta’s soft warmth, but I had to pee like a banshee. I wiggled out, and Marta jerked awake with a whimper, throwing her arm up to protect herself. I squeezed her hand, kissed her forehead, and she settled down giving me half a smile and a hug.
The sleet blew parallel to the ground picking up wet, stinging sand. The sky was white. I guessed it was what a cowboy from Montana had called a white wind. The horses’ manes and tails were clotted with sandy ice. Cracker grunted painfully and crapped.
“I know what you mean, partner.”
Marta crawled out with a blanket and slicker over her shoulders. She looked like a rained-on lost puppy. She huddled in a lump while I saddled and packed the bedroll. Sneezing, she blew her nose on her sleeve.
It was after sunup, but I wouldn’t have bet on it. We started off walking, keeping the horses to windward. The idea of getting up on a saddle with the wind-driven sleet like nails was too grim. We crunched over patches of frost clinging to struggling grass. It was too hard going so we climbed onto saddles anyway. It was pretty bad. I sucked it up, kept telling myself that it couldn’t last forever. It felt like it would anyway.
We stopped to switch off horses and one was bad lame. I took off its saddle and hackamore and left it. I felt bad doing that, but I couldn’t shoot it. I stayed on Cracker, and we kept on.
We were beyond Cerro el Colorado, a faint shape in the white sleet. Fat wet snowflakes were falling. Something didn’t seem right. I looked back and Marta was fifty yards behind me with the spare. She sat there like a lump on a log.
I rode back. “Marta,” I shouted against the wind.
She didn’t move. With my second shout, she looked up. It was like she was staring right through me and saw nothing. I got off Cracker and lifted her down. She was limp, spent, had nothing left. I wasn’t far from it my ownself.
“We have to keep moving.” I gripped Marta’s shoulders. “There ain’t no way outta this. We can’t bundle up in the bedroll, lay out here in the middle of nowhere with us and the horses getting weaker.” There’s no place to go, no place to hide.
She nodded understanding.
I got Marta up behind me and covered her up better. “You hang onto me, never let go.” She cinched onto me, and that was better for both of us. I could feel her head against my back and her arms around me. Time, place, it all ran together. We couldn’t stop. We’d die. Our only chance was to ride out of this freezing hell. I didn’t know if it was light or dark, morning or nightfall. We rode through the never-ending howling sleet.
I heard a voice say, “I can’t do this.” I turned around, and there was nobody there, excepting Marta hanging on, limp. “I can’t do this no more.” It was me talking. When I gathered it was my ownself, it wasn’t so spooky, so I kept talking. “I ain’t never going to be warm no more, ain’t never going to be dry, ain’t never going to eat again.” That bullet graze on my leg hurt too.
Marta wrapped her arms around me tighter, like she knew something was wrong. I shouldn’t be talking that way. I started shivering more. “I can’t do this no more, Marta.”
She slid her arms up on my shoulders and pulled me around. Her eyes were half swelled shut with icy tears. Snot was running from our noses, and she grabbed my head and kissed me on the mouth like never before. Her lips were cold and swollen, but I felt warmth. Twisting in the saddle, I wrapped tight around her, and we held one another. I’ve never felt like that before, but I can’t tell you what I was really feeling. After a spell, she let go and gave me a little shove, telling me to keep going, that we couldn’t ever stop.
I put the horse forward.
»»•««
Hours later, we were on a low ridge. What light there was, was dying. The sleet and snow had stopped. It was only freezing rain now. The wind had let up to just a tree-shaking blast. I was looking at adobes, a mud road; smoke was drifting from chimneys.
I was looking at San Miguel. Not a person to be seen.
Marta was barely hanging on now. We rode in, passing the hacienda. Two horses and a mule stood behind the wall looking awful sad. Probably belonged to wounded banditos left behind. I didn’t care.
Marta stared at compound fearfully, making me wonder what had happened there. I dashed that thought.
I stopped at a jacalito near the far end, a simple shack without windows, smoke coming out of the hole in the roof. I don’t know why I picked that one.
I tied the three miserable horses on the lee side of the shack. Marta couldn’t stand. Carrying her like a sack of wet feed, I kicked on the little door made from a wagon tailgate.
“¿Quíen es?” asked a nervous voice.
“Por favor, amigo…”—Please, friend—was all I could think to say.
The door cracked open, and an old muzzle-loading shotgun glared at me. I moved the bandana from Marta’s swollen face.
“Pasenle,” said a round-faced, shaggy-haired man. His droopy eyes were topped by equally shaggy eyebrows.
The door opened, and I stooped in. It was smoky with the prairie-fire smell of cow chips and burnt frijole beans. It was barely warm, but a hell of a lot better than the other side of the door. The man and a woman were bundled in serapes and looked nervous. He kept that old shotgun close. The woman sat on the floor on blankets with two little kids hiding behind her, their big eyes staring at the queer strangers. The woman looked older than she probably was.
The two of us slumped on the dirt floor beside the fireplace. The man said something to Marta, but she only looked at him. Water dripped from the ceiling. The woman threw on some cow chips and whispered to the man. He sat on the floor cross-legged and nodded, “Mi casa es su casa. Usted y su esposa están invitados a quedarse.”
My house is your house—the traditional invitation. I think he said me and my wife could stay. No point in arguing about relationships.
The woman took a pot from the edge of the fire and ladled frijole beans into a couple of gourd bowls, stuck in wooden spoons, and passed them to me. There were bits of goat in it. I had to spoon-feed Marta.
The man messed with a blackened coffee boiler and put it on the fire. On a flat stone on the fire’s edge the woman warmed corn tortillas. The beans were tasteless and so were the tortillas, but no matter; they were hot. I’ll say one thing; this ain’t where Marta learned to make frijole beans. The man finally poured coffee into gourd
cups. That perked us up more than anything, and Marta started eating on her own.
Pulling my makings out, I rolled cigs and gave the first to the man. He watched us with droopy eyes. The woman didn’t want a smoke. I lit up Marta’s, then my own. The man seemed to surely like his. I brought the saddles in, and the man gave our horses a little hay and he helped me water them.
Marta leaned against me and was snoring in no time. I drank another gourd of coffee and tried to stay awake, not being sure it was safe. I wondered about that bandidito kid. It was like something had passed between them. It didn’t matter; she’d shot him like any other bandito—she hadn’t spit on him. The only sounds were the wind, the rain beating on the shack, and the fire’s crackling pops.
»»•««
I came to with the dawn. There was no wind or rain, only the crackling fire. It was like nobody had moved. The man and woman were sitting in the same places, and the two kids were still behind their mama peeking out with dirty faces. Marta and I went out, pissed, and then grained the horses. There was one more feed left.
Breakfast was the same as last night’s supper. We smoked again, and I handed the man three rollies. I said, “Muchas gracias,” and handed him all the pesos I’d cut off the bandito’s sombrero.
His eyes got big as he said, “De nada.”
I put my finger to my lips and shook my head. I hoped he understood not to say nothing about us if someone came asking questions.
He nodded and winked.
I didn’t trust him one damn bit. We took the out-trail pronto, heading east. On the ridge beside the road were three water-sogged graves. I told Marta they were Rurales me and Flaco had killed.
Turning back to San Miguel with the field glasses, I saw our host trotting up the road toward the hacienda. Didn’t know he could move that fast. Marta didn’t need the glasses to see the treachery. She bristled up like a javelina boar, jammed her heels into the horse’s sides, and tore down the ridge. She stood in the stirrups, her elbows jutting, and her head down.
“Oh shit.” I took off after her. I’d rather have run for it, the twenty miles to the Rio Grande. “Lordy, that girl can ride!”
We charged through the village leaving roster tails of flying mud and run a couple of peons off the road. Sliding to a stop at the hacienda wall, we found our host jabbering to two banditos, cornshuck rollies hanging off their lips. One wore a sling and stood with a crutch and a bloody bandage above his knee. All three looked up, stunned. The other bandito was hatless with a head bandage and brought his pistol up, but I already had my Remington in hand. I fired four times hitting him and his unsaddled horse. The bandito with the sling dropped the crutch and got off a shot before being blown smack into the wall by Marta’s shotgun. Sliding down the wall, he left a smear of red. The peon host stood with his droopy eyes wide open. He slowly reached for the low clouds. The shot horse slung his head around and kicked a hind leg. The screeching mule ran in circles around the courtyard trying to find a way out. Marta clicked back the second hammer and aimed at the peon. He pissed his pants. In my head, I saw those two pairs of wide eyes looking out from behind their mama.
“¡Marta, alto!”
She looked at me with more annoyance than a question.
“No, Marta. Los dos niños.”
She stared a spell, and her eyes softened. She understood what I was thinking, those two little kids and their mama. Shoot their papa and they were just about doomed to death. She too understood that little things needed to be protected.
There’d been enough dying. This was El Xiuhcoatl’s stronghold. The peons here had been cowed by the banditos, used by them. They owned this poor man and everyone here. Out of fear, he had no choice. I couldn’t see killing him because of something he had no say in. He was trapped here at the mercy of a bunch of murdering bastards. Anyways, he hadn’t ratted on us during the night. He’d given us a chance to get away.
“Los bandidos muertos.”—The banditos dead.—I said, sweeping my arm wide, meaning all were dead, well, almost all.
He looked at me big-eyed, and then looked at Marta. She gave an evil grin and nodded.
I got off Cracker, reloaded, went through the gate, and opened the hacienda door. That gal with the big jugs I’d seen the other day stood inside real fearful-looking. She ducked into a room. I made arm motions for our host to go in. It’s his; it’s all theirs. He peeked through the door, but jumped so high his head hit the top of the frame when I finished off the wounded horse.
Marta pointed with her shotgun.
“¿Qué?” I asked.
She wanted the bandito’s sombrero. I handed it to her, and she set the big straw-woven hat on her head.
We trotted out and back up the ridge. Looking back, I saw peons swarming in and out of the hacienda carrying all manner of things. Marta grimly smiled.
»»•««
I stopped after we’d put two ridges between us and San Miguel. Marta looked at me funny, like she was thinking, “Why stop now?”
Sliding off Cracker I could barely move my right arm. Blood leaked from my coat sleeve. “Dammit to hell, got nicked on the leg, got a sore ass, a head cold, and now this.”
I sat against a rock, and Marta gently took off my coat and with my hunting knife cut my shirt and long john sleeves open. It was a bullet graze halfway up my forearm, but it had cut down to the bone. It was bleeding a lot and getting all over me. She took the rag she’d washed with, poured water on it, and cleaned the wound. Next, she cut off my long john’s sleeve at the elbow and slit it full length. After wrapping a thick wool sock around my arm, she tied the sleeve over it real tight. It hurt, but the bleeding stopped.
I drank some water, got my coat on with Marta’s help and said, “Ándale.”
I felt kind of faint-headed and a little belly-sick, but we mounted and were off with our one spare tied to Marta’s horse. She rode alongside keeping an eye on me.
Chapter Fifty-Six
I didn’t want to stop for nothing. Maybe eighteen miles to the Rio. Another five to the ranch house. We could do it in a day, even in our beat down condition. It was early, and we could ride at night if we had to, if we could keep going. I was hurting; Marta was weakening. She had her spurts, pushed herself, but she couldn’t keep it up after all what she’d been through. I don’t know what kept her going. I ain’t never seen a woman like her. I didn’t know what was keeping me going. One time I slowed to a stop. She was beside me, her big ol’ eyes looking at me from under her sombrero. She touched my arm, and her eyes said, “You gotta do it, for us.”
Marta demanded we stop at noon. Not for her, but for me. She made me lay on a blanket, and she built a little fire, put on the coffeepot of water. After peeling bark off a scrawny willow and throwing it in the pot, she cleaned both my bullet grazes. We ate warmed jerky and the last of the corn dodgers. The willowbark tea was bitter even with the sugar she put in, but it eased the pain a little. I wanted to get going even though I still felt faint-headed.
After telling myself for the twentieth time that El Xiuhcoatl probably called it quits after that storm and not finding our trail, I again said, “Don’t count on it.” I didn’t see him giving up after seeing his brother shot dead by Marta’s hand. Could be he quit, but he reminded me of a puma. He knew where we were headed. Even if we swung north or south to cross the Rio, he could be sitting on the Dew waiting for us, like a puma waylaying a goat. He could have gotten ahead of us if he’d gotten that notion early on. Give up looking for us and head straight for the Dew. Maybe we should head north to Del Rio, but that would add a day. We didn’t have it in us. I wondered if Clay still had monitors out or if we’d have to make a dead run for the house. I knew one thing: we weren’t safe until we reached that house…home. The closer we got to home the more dangerous it was.
No rain, the wind only a little gusty and the clouds were higher, with breaks in places. We saw a pale flicker of the sun at times. We took turns riding the spare, changing every hour. I hoped to have our
horses rested, if you could call it that, when we got to the Rio.
I worried more about Marta. She seemed good most of the time, but when she dismounted, she had a tough time tottering around. I knew she was putting on a brave show when I caught her hanging onto a stirrup strap and her head drooping. She raised her head slow and saw me watching her. She popped her head up and gave me a smile with a rollie hanging on her lip. Pulling herself up onto the saddle, she finished off the rollie and flipped the butt at me with a tight grin as if sayin, “Let’s get going.”
The closer we got to the Rio the more cover we had with the thickening mesquite. I tried to keep to low ground. Late afternoon, I figured we were on Rancho Mariposa land. That set me to thinking there might be another trouble to face. Ol’ Don Garza might be none too hospitable to any Dew hands found on his land owing to us gunning down his son.
There was a low, barren ridge off to our left, to the north. If I had my bearings straight, on the other side of that ridge was the trail we’d followed our stolen herd. Not far beyond that was Don Garza’s son’s house where we’d strung up them bastards that started this whole mess. I admit it now gave me a cold contentment they’d met their maker that way. Their dying was a damn sight easier than what we’d been through.
Marta was behind me with Cracker stringed to her horse. I rode the spare. I looked back, and she was peering real intent off to the left. I looked that way, and there was a rider on the ridge going in the opposite direction. A Rancho Mariposa vaquero? I watched him as he slowed down and even at that distance, I could tell he was watching us. Any ranch hand would be checking out strangers crossing their land. But of all the times Flaco and me visited with Rancho Mariposa vaqueros at the Rio, they were always in twos and threes.
He stopped and hoisted his sombrero, waved it. I turned to tell Marta not to wave, but she’d already flourished her sombrero, and her long hair blew in the wind. The next thing I knew, he fired his rifle into the air. I could tell he was shooting, and then the three shots’ sound reached us. He’d signaled.
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